Where to Look for a Dinosaur

Here's a compendium of geography and history disguised as rollicking dinosaur hoopla. While looking for dinosaur bones, readers will bump into Argentinian gauchos, Uruguay's disappearing plants and animals, Zimbabwe's stunning Victoria Falls and China's Great Wall. Along the way Most deftly debunks scientific nomenclature. (Albertosaurus bones are found in Alberta, Canada; Alamosaurus fossils in Texas. The Yaleosaurus once lived--yes, it's true--near Yale University; even more, he chewed on soft plants, making him a candidate for the ``Ivy League.'') Most, a master of association, furnishes familiar bright and busy oil marker illustrations that make perfect sense in a chaotic context. In the Arctic, yesterday's Arctosaurus romps with contemporary walrus relations. The graceful Itemirus, whose fossils were found in Russia, performs at the Bolshoi, while in Oklahoma Acrocanthosaurus strikes the pose of an oil pump while standing above fossil fuels. Once again, Most has turned dinosaurs into magnets for all manner of factoids. In this not-so-trivial pursuit of knowledge, kids just may remember more than they mean to. Ages 4-8. (Mar.)